The ladies (beg pardon, ladies, I mean females) of that place brought into the hospital many things to nourish and tempt the appetites of the sufferers, but they gave all these delicacies to the Confederate soldiers: our men were passed by as unworthy of notice or sympathy.
One day a lady, who had been a constant visitor, brought in a supply of fragrant tea. She went from one cot to another of her friends, but had no eye or heart of pity for others.
One of our wounded men, who lay near his end, longed for a cup of this tea as he saw it handed to those around him, and requested the chaplain, who stood by his side, to ask the lady for a little of the tea.
He did so in a very polite manner, at the same time telling her how ill the man was, and that it was the soldier himself who wished him to make the request.
“No,” said she, and her face flushed with anger; “not a drop of it; this tea is all for our suffering martyrs.”
The chaplain replied: “Madam, I looked for no other answer. I beg pardon for having seemed for a moment to expect a different one.”
A few moments afterwards, as the poor disappointed man lay there seeing the delicious tea passed on all sides of him and could not procure a drop of it, an old lame negro woman came limping up the aisle with a large basket on each arm.
Coming up to where the chaplain stood, she laid down the baskets and addressed him thus:
“Massa, I’se a slave—my husban’ and chil’en is slaves. Will you ’cept dese tings for de poor men?”
Then taking up a roll of stockings, she said: “Dem I knit wid my own hands for de soldiers, when all sleep, in my cabin. We know’d dis war was comin’ long ’fore you Yankees did. We see it ’proaching, an’ we began to prepare for it.”